The importance of a good meta description

21st August 2009 05:30 by lisa

Whilst debate still rages as to whether Google takes any notice of meta keywords anymore (keywords you put in the head of your webpage, that you and your visitors don't see, but that Google and all other search engines do), it's still vital to have strong title tags and, I think, good meta descriptions. If you state a meta description, it's this that Google displays under the title of your listing in search results (see image below - the text that begins "18a mail is a simple to use, 100% UK based..."). If you don't state what to display as your description, Google picks other text to show here instead (and how it does this varies - that's another article!), and what it picks might not always be the best information to show. It might just show something dull, or that doesn't really say what you're about. Or in the case of a brand I was looking at the other day, it picked "What you read on this website may not be typical of what you will experience when using [name of product]..." on the search result of a major international beauty product! Not the best introduction to what is actually a world renowned product! So check out your site, and give it a good meta description if it hasn't got one, or give us a call if you want us to sort it out for you.